


You Were Only Waiting

by roadtripexpert



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: Dialogue Heavy, Jacobi has a boyfriend, M/M, Multi, Platonic Female/Male Relationships, Platonic Relationships, Post-Hephaestus, gay and lesbian solidarity, polyamory if you squint, space trauma™
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-07
Updated: 2018-07-08
Packaged: 2019-03-28 01:58:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13893810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roadtripexpert/pseuds/roadtripexpert
Summary: Jacobi got the call in the middle of Indiana. The burner phone was purely precautionary, which meant the call could be one of two things: Goddard, which he was ready for, or Lovelace, which he was not.





	1. Phone Calls from Almost Friends

**Author's Note:**

> I gave Jacobi a boyfriend because I want him to be happy. Jury's still out as to whether its working.

He got the call at a gas station in the middle of Indiana, trying to make out on a map where they were going to stay that night. Kai was buying cheap snacks for the road before they found a place for more healthy groceries.

He almost didn’t register the sound his cheap burner phone was making against the grimy carpet of the car floor. No one had called him since he left Cape Canaveral with no clear plan, a desperate wish to be on the road, and a twenty-dollar bill. The phone was precautionary, in case he and Kai got separated. Which meant the call could be one of two things: Goddard, which he was ready for, or Lovelace, which he was not. An enemy he could deal with, an enemy he was _itching_ to deal with. A friend, well, that wasn’t even the right word. His relationship with the Hephaestus crew was messy and jumbled up with other emotions he didn’t want to face half-way in the middle of nowhere, his boyfriend probably already paying for soda and chips. Friend seemed both too strong and weak a word, but nothing else seemed to fit.

He groaned and leaned over to pick up the heavy brick of a phone off the car floor. The screen was flashing ‘Unknown Caller’. _Here’s hoping it’s Goddard,_ he thought before picking up. It wasn’t.

“Is this Jacobi?” His last name hit him like a slap to the face, but he recognized Lovelace’s voice through the static, calm, assured, only a tinge of anxiety coloring her tone.

“Is this Lovelace?”

She grunted her assent. 

“Why are you calling me?”

“Jacobi, did you honestly think we weren’t going to check in on you?” He shifted in his seat, palm rubbing one side of his face. He had hoped that maybe he would be able to leave everything behind, all his grief, all his memories. But then Kai said something that Kepler said once, the lady at the checkout looked like Maxwell, or Lovelace’s voice brought him back to the crackling of smoking guns over the comms. Brought him back to the smell of Alana’s shampoo after she showered for the first time in a week, to Kepler’s mint and whiskey breath. To fire and bombs and the feeling in his chest when an explosion hit.

“How did you get my number?”

“I have my ways.”

“Ooooh, mysterious,” Daniel deadpanned, head turning as another person walked out of the rest stop. Not Kai. “Look, I’m driving with someone else, who,” he paused, “may or may not know about the whole…” he gestured, then realized Lovelace couldn’t see him.

“The whole space fiasco?”

“Yes. That.”

“Friend?” Daniel winced. He was going to regret telling her this.

“Boyfriend, actually.” She was silent for a while. Nothing but the crackle of still air.

“And he doesn’t know?”

“I was going to tell him, am going to tell him.”

“Hey, I get it. He doesn’t know, it’s almost like it didn’t happen.”

“Thank you,” he let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. Kai walked out the doors with two plastic bags full of junk food. “Look, you can call me back tonight, but I got to go.”

“Alright. Goodbye Jacobi.”

“Goodbye.”

Kai opened the car door and deposited the bags on the floor.

“Who were talking to?” Kai had noticed that Daniel never talked with anyone. Kai had noticed a lot of things. Like the nightmares and the suspicion. He usually didn’t press, chalked it up to military and past trauma, which was technically correct. They were both men of the road, moving like this only meant you were trying to leave something behind.

“An old co-worker,” Daniel answered, hopping that would be enough.

Kai nodded and took the map from Daniel’s lap.

“Where to next?”

\---

They stayed in another shitty motel that night. Daniel waited for Kai to fall asleep, slants of light appearing a disappearing on his face as cars rushed by. Then he waited for the phone to ring. He wondered why the Hephaestus crew wanted from him. Closure? Forgiveness? Friendship? Maybe all three. Maybe they saw him as part of their little broken family, which, he supposed, he was. Maybe they were planning something against Goddard and they knew he would want in. Maybe…the phone rang.

“Hello.” It was Lovelace again.

“Hi.” He paused. Might as well get right to the point. “What do you want?”

“What do we…? Jesus, Jacobi. We just want to make sure you’re alright.”

“Okay. That all? It’s fine. I’m fine. Everything’s fine. Can I go back to my life now?”

“Well, actually, there is one thing.”

“Ha. I knew it.”

“It’s a funeral, Jacobi,” she said, exasperated. “We wanted to do, you know…an honest to god Earth funeral. For everyone.” He didn’t say anything for a while. All the air seemed like it had been punched out of him.

“Everyone,” he asked, a little strained, “everyone like…?”

“Not Cutter or anything like that. Just…Maxwell, Hilbert, and…” she trailed off, like she wanted to hear him say it, because if she said it maybe she was crossing a boundary, breaking a promise.

“Kepler.” She grunted in affirmation. He thought for a moment, head resting against the wall, watching Kai’s sleeping face. “Okay,” he said, finally, then he let out a breath he didn’t realize he had been holding.

“Okay?”

“Yeah. Okay.”

“Alright, we can send you our location if you tell us where you’ll be in a few days.”

“Okay.” He didn’t know why he was agreeing so readily. Maybe it was because he really did need closure. Maybe he really did want to see them, even if seeing them just opened the gaping wound in his chest where Alana and Kepler used to be.

He told her where they would be in three days, she said she could get it there on time. Then she told him to be safe, like they were still in zero gravity and he was about to blow something up. He told her to be safe too, and she laughed and hung up.

He stayed where he was for a while, not quite sure what he was feeling. Grief lasted longer on Earth, when no one was trying to kill him, when he didn’t have to pull himself together and face whatever new problem the day gave him. Their bodies were in space; their ghosts were down on Earth. It haunted him, all the things he hadn’t said. All the things he did. All the effort he put into trying to feel nothing, and how all of it just poured back after two phone calls with a person he may be may not be friends with.

He laid down and watch streams of light pass over Kai’s face until he fell asleep, and for the first time since he left Cape Canaveral, dreamed of nothing.

 ---

Daniel walked out of the post office with a slip of paper and a weight on his chest. Kai was waiting in the car, key already in the ignition. He handed Daniel an apple and asked him why he had needed to make this stop. Daniel didn’t answer for a few moments.

“I have a funeral, that I have to go to,” he said finally, voice tight, the emotions of last night bubbling to the surface.

Kai made a sound and pulled Daniel as close to him as possible across the divide between the two seats. He put his hand on Daniel’s head and just held him. And the grief came welling back up, and for the first time since leaving Cape Canaveral, Daniel let himself cry.

It only took them a few days to get to Massachusetts and one more to reach the coast, another Cape. He and Kai had all their worldly possessions in the cheap car they bought together after four months on the road. Daniel had stopped at his house after leaving Canaveral, stuffed a box with clothes and essentials, a few books, and all the things that Alana left at his house, all the things Kepler might have touched.

They drove down block after block of wind-bleached houses, green lawns, and blue hydrangeas. The house was tucked behind a small forest of weathered looking trees at the end of a cul-de-sac. It looked old, but it was sizable, and that seemed right. There were a lot of them. And Hera would obviously take up some space. He idly wondered if they’d gotten her back online. It had been a year, almost, it would make sense. Kai held his hand as they walked up to the door together, and with a start Daniel realized that he would have to tell him everything. The thought almost makes him want to turn around and leave. To keep on running until he couldn’t anymore. But he didn’t. He rang the doorbell.

They waited for a moment, fidgeting and awkward. Kai still hadn’t asked any questions, but he kept on looking at Daniel with something like confusion, and pity.

Lovelace opened the door. Daniel realized that he had never seen her in jeans and a plain white tee. It was terrifying. The foyer was brightly lit, behind her he could see an array of jackets and hats, scarves that looked like they had been hand-knit. It looked like a home.

“Jacobi,” she said, “we’re glad you’re here, come on in.”

She led them through the front hallway, and there was a moment where Daniel wondered if he should take off his shoes. Lovelace was still talking.

“Rene ́e is making dinner, and Dominik is keeping Doug out of the kitchen. You can join him if you want. I understand it’s quite a struggle.” She paused, then gasped a little like she had forgotten something. She turned to Kai. “I don’t believe we’ve met. I’m Isabel Lovelace. You can call me Isabel if you want.”

Daniel wondered if he would ever get to call Lovelace by her first name, if he would ever _want_ to.

“Nice to meet you,” Kai said, shaking her hand, and then, “Sorry for your loss.”

Lovelace looked at Daniel with a somewhat weary expression. She grimaced.

“I wasn’t…I wasn’t all that close to them. It’s more…Well, it’s more for Jacobi. And Hera, in a sense.”

“I wasn’t too close to the good doctor.” Lovelace snorted.

“Was anyone? It’s not like the man tried to be friendly. I mean, Eiffel, maybe. But…” she trailed off.

“Yeah.”

“So, you two served in the army together?” Kai asked, clearly trying to understand the nature of their relationship.

“You could say that,” Lovelace said. “Come on, lets introduce you to the rest of the crew.”

 ---

Introductions were awkward at best. Minkowski seemed genuinely excited to see him, but Dominik didn’t really know who he was, and Doug only remembered a few months of him, which…was probably for the best. Hera said hello to him politely at best, startling Kai half to death.

“Glad they got you online, Hera.”

“Glad you’re here.” He wasn’t sure if she meant it or not. She held grudges like crazy.

Turned out half her processors were in the guest bedroom, where he and Kai would be staying the night. The other half were in the third story bathroom that nobody used.

Dinner was pasta, which wasn’t terrible. Dinner was also silent, which was.

“So,” Minkowski said, “when did you two meet?”

“Around seven months ago?” Kai said, “After a few weeks of accidentally checking into the same hotels we decided to travel together.”

Jacobi smiled and placed a hand over Kai’s, trying not to let the anxiety in his chest overwhelm whatever happiness he let himself feel.

“That sounds nice,” Hera chimed in when nobody said anything. Dominik coughed.

“So, you spend my twenty dollars on anything in particular?” asked Minkowski. Daniel laughed.

“Nope. I got it laminated.”

“That’s…wow,” Doug said through a mouthful of spaghetti.

“Nobody can say I don’t have a flair for the dramatic.” There was another uncomfortable pause. This time it was Daniel who broke the silence.

“So, how’s everything going with you guys?” He felt false saying it. He felt false in this house. Lovelace looked at him like she knew. Like she saw right through him, but she wasn’t the one to speak.

“Actually, Doug’s been speaking to Anne over face-time. He still can’t actually visit her, but we worked it out with the lawyers and well, firstly, he’s not legally dead anymore, and secondly he can talk with his daughter,” Minkowski said.

Doug smiled. “She’s a good kid. And I think it’s good for her, to see me once and a while. Even if I’m not, you-know, him.”

“Good for you man,” Daniel said, and he meant it. Doug Eiffel was a good guy, and what happened to him was a cruel joke of the universe. “How’s it feel to be alive again?”

“Didn’t know I was dead until a few weeks ago.”

“Right.”

The conversation went on like that for a time. Daniel purposely avoiding eye contact with Kai, knowing that his expression would be trusting and open and concerned and confused.

“Do you think you’re going to say something tomorrow?” It was Doug, of all people. Daniel looked at him, disbelieving.

“Was this your idea?” he asked, slightly more accusatory than was perhaps necessary. Minkowski laughed.

“I know, I know! We’ve concluded that Doug Eiffel is just a genuinely good person.” Daniel shook his head. Leave it to Doug to have this idea. Originally. Twice.

“Who would have guessed. At least he’s not dragging me to the ceremony in handcuffs.”

“I did that?” Doug asked.

“Ohhh yeah,” Minkowski said. “You sure did.”

Daniel and Kai went upstairs once the entire Hephaestus crew, plus Dominick was sprawled in the living room on various couches and armchairs, watching reality TV and talking in soft voices. It seemed so special and intimate, and like something Daniel didn’t want to mess up. Daniel could see Minkowski’s head resting on Lovelace’s chest, her legs in her husband’s lap as he and his boyfriend helped Doug clean up. When they were done, Doug asked if the two of them wanted to join everyone in the living room, but Daniel declined. He felt like an intruder already.

He shut the door quietly and turned to see Kai standing with his arms crossed.

“You can’t avoid talking to me forever.” Daniel nodded. Cringed. Took a deep breath.

“I might have been a terrible person before I went to space. And I was a pretty terrible person up there too. So, I might have been a pretty terrible person until around a year ago,” he blurted.

“Daniel,” Kai said, like a question and a warning, “if you don’t start making sense right now…”

“Right. Sorry. It’s just…a really long story.” He winced at his own wording. “You might want to sit down?”

Kai sat down on the edge of the bed, still looking unimpressed. Daniel sat gingerly next to him, took a deep breath, and began.


	2. Interim I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A short chapter of conversation, confrontation, transition, and forgiveness

It took Kai a few days to talk to him again. Really talk, or touch, or look. _Not because he was angry,_ he assured Daniel in the middle of the night, _just processing._ Then he reached over and cradled Daniel’s head in his hand and kissed him. In the dark he began to feel less numb.

Processing.

In the morning Kai wasn’t there, he hadn’t been for the last two days. Daniel was a late sleeper, even with light coming in between half-broken blinds. He blinked at the empty space.

“Was I wrong to tell him?” he asked, half to himself.

“Hmmm? Were you talking to me?” Hera blinked to life over the speakers in the corner of the room.

“Maybe. I don’t know. Do you want me to be?”

Hera made a sound like a sigh. “Sure Jacobi. Whatever you want.”

“No. You don’t want to talk to me.”

“Why do you want me to!” She paused and readjusted her volume. “Just because you’re here doesn’t mean I’m okay with it. I just…don’t know how to feel. About the funeral or Maxwell, or you, or any of it! But I have to be there. For Doug. I just don’t want to have to be there for you too, okay?”

Jacobi squeezed his eyes shut and collapsed onto the bed.

“Earth is messy,” he said, and waited for a response. Hera humphed slightly. She was ignoring him. A few moments passed.

“Space was messy. Wherever humans go is messy,” she said, resigned.

“But it’s different.”

“Yes.” Her reply was clipped. “What are you getting at.”

“I’m not trying to kill any of your crew,” he began, and cut her off before she could respond. “I don’t want to, and I didn’t particularly want to before. But the point is, I’m here as a friend. Not for work or money or anything like that. I’m here for the Earth kind of messy. Relationships and friendship and a fucking funeral. That’s what I meant.”

Silence for another few moments. And then, “I think you were right to tell him.”

“Thank you, Hera.”

 ---

As he walked down the stairs he heard the muffled sounds of conversation from the kitchen. Minkowski and Lovelace making breakfast, maybe, he thought. And then he heard Kai’s voice.

“He’s killed people. I don’t…I don’t know how to feel about any of it.”

Daniel stopped abruptly, suddenly fighting the urge to vomit, suddenly fighting the urge to run back up the stairs pack his things and run. Fighting. He stayed where he was, silent, terrified. Minkowski’s voice floated up to him.

“We all killed people. _I_ killed people. _His_ people.” 

“I know, I just don’t understand…I thought I knew him, you know. I thought he was military,” Kai said. And he sounded so fucking sincere.

He heard Lovelace sigh. “You love him?”

“Yeah, and I’m not going to stop. I guess I just want to understand.”

“But you love him. That’s a good start.”

“A start.”

Daniel wanted to scream. He wanted to blow something up, anything (maybe anything but fireworks). He wanted to bury his face in Kai’s chest and tell him that one day he would be deserving of love. He wanted. Instead he walked quietly back upstairs and lay in a bed that wasn’t his and listened to the house waking up around him.

Processing. A start. He wondered if this is what Hera saw in him. Messy. Human. Vulnerable. Terrified and terrifying.

 ---

Kai came into the room several minutes later and seemed surprised to see him still in bed. Daniel closed the book he had been pretending to read.  
“Do you think I’m a terrible person?” He didn’t mean to make his voice catch as much as it did. He didn’t mean to feel so raw, so close to his own heartbeat.

Kai pursed his lips and sat down next to him on the bed.

“Baby, we all need work,” he said, and pulled Daniel into his arms, planting a kiss on the top of his head. (It was shaved, he felt the texture of Kai’s lips across his skull and the stubble of his hair). “We all need work,” he repeated softly, “but I still love you. A lot. And I’m so glad you told me.”

“I heard you talking with Minkowski and Lovelace,” Daniel mumbled. Kai’s chin shifted against his head, a question. “I have killed people,” he said, and shook his head when Kai made a sound of concern and disagreement. “No. I killed people. And the worst thing is I didn’t regret most of it. I didn’t regret it until it hurt the people I love.”

He expected Kai to let go of him, instead he only held him tighter. And that’s when Daniel realized he was crying, and that’s when he realized Kai was saying _“It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay.”_ Over and over. A mantra. _“Baby we all need work.”_

And for once he let himself be held by someone who knew all his secrets and didn’t care. And for once he felt like this might be the beginning of the middle, and not the middle of the end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feel free to send me constructive criticism in your comments! *Banging pots and pans together* I want! To get! Better! 
> 
> tumblr: @alicewasntdead


	3. Funeral

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A long-awaited funeral. Kai is still the best. Daniel is still working stuff out.

It rained the day they decided to go outside, cold, driving rain that soaked the ground and turned everything grey. It slowed to a fine drizzle around noon, and they decided it would be best just to get it over with before it started pouring again.

Daniel and Kai had scoped out a spot along the dunes on the beach, out of sight from the house, wind buffeted with a view of the ocean and the tiny strip of blue the sky had to offer.

They led the crew there, buffeted by wind, arms around each other, looking out at the sea. Daniel squinted into the breeze, trying not to think too hard about what he was going to say at the funeral. Minkowski and Lovelace followed behind them, holding the three smooth beach stones they were using for graves, and behind them Dominik with Eiffel, who was cradling a speaker that was hooked up to Hera’s Wi-Fi. A procession of sorts.

When they reached the spot, Daniel let go of Kai’s shoulder and searched for his hand, squeezed, then turned to the small gathering.

“Here.”

Lovelace nodded and handed him two of the rocks, Minkowski was holding Hilbert’s stone with an expression he could not decipher.  

“Alright,” she said, after a while, quietly, “this is…different. Do you want to start, Jacobi?”

He could only nod, looking down at the two rocks in his hand. Alana Maxwell. Warren Kepler. He placed them both on the ground and faced his almost-friends, his lover, all waiting, apprehensive, even a little bit scared. Of him. Of what he was going to say.

“Let’s start with Alana Maxwell,” he said, and hated how much his voice cracked, hated how vulnerable he sounded in that moment. He took another breath. “She was. Well. She was my sister. She was my friend, and confidant, and she kept me safe, I kept her safe. We…we were each other’s safety nets, and I think I would do anything to have her back. I…” he broke off and choked on the beginning of a sob, he could see out of the corner of his eye, Minkowski, tears streaming down her face, hand tight around her husband’s arm. Part of him hated her, part of him would always hate her, and that part of him thought she didn’t deserve to cry or feel sorry. But part of him was also grateful. She taught him how to heal, in a way. She taught him how to see other people’s grief, other people’s mistakes and forgive them. So he just nodded at her, slightly, and she nodded back, which was what gave him the courage to continue.

“I couldn’t mourn her properly, up there. I couldn’t…how could I? I was too angry. But I think she would like this. She loved the beach. It was one of the few places we could get her to go to.” He tried to laugh. He tried to make what he was saying feel less _wrong_. He couldn’t. Of course he couldn’t, all he could say was:

“She was my sister.”

They stood there, gray and tiny in the sand, and he looked down at the next stone and shook his head. He couldn’t move. He just shook his head until Lovelace guided him back down and handed him to a very concerned looked Kai. He looked like he wanted to ask her something but she silenced him with a look.

Minkowski cleared her throat.

“Hera, do want to say anything?”

“I…” she paused, he audio faint and crackly. “I guess. I’m sorry. She deserves so much more than what I can give her. She was good. Alana Maxwell was…good, and she was good to me. And the world is…less…without her. I can’t really define what she means to me which is why this is so… _frustrating_. But I honestly wish she was hear with us now, if that counts for anything.”

Minkowski nodded and placed Hilbert’s rock a little ways away from Maxwell and Kepler, and looked at it blankly for a few seconds, then, almost to herself she said,

“I don’t know if I can say anything nice about Hilbert, Selberg, whoever he was. He was a bitter, bitter man and he poisoned a member of my crew.” She faced out and looked at Eiffel sadly. “I’m sorry, Doug, I’m going to talk about Eiffel now.” He nodded. “I’m doing this because Eiffel would have wanted us too. He always saw something else in Hilbert, something good, something that was maybe broken and maybe could be fixed. Here’s hoping he’s found some peace, and maybe fixed that hurt inside him.”

She moved back. Back in line. A line of people honoring another line of people. People who had hurt them or loved them or worse. A complicated web of hate and pity and confusion and fear and grief. Overlapping. Complicated. They stood there for what felt like hours. Shifting, silent. Finally, Lovelace cleared her throat and spoke.

“We don’t have to say anything about him if you don’t want to, Jacobi.”

“I know.” His throat felt like cotton and syrup. “I don’t think I can. I think this is enough.”

“Okay. Well, everyone, feel free to leave as soon as your comfortable.”

Hera and Doug left soon after that, followed by Minkowski and Dominik, hand in hand. Lovelace gave him one last look before heading back over the dunes. Only then did Daniel collapse against Kai, choking on dry sobs, face pressed against his boyfriend’s shoulder. Kai lowered them onto the ground, slowly, and they stayed there, shuddering in the sand, for a long time.

Then Daniel was silent for a while, letting Kai hold him. And then he got up, brushed himself off, walked over to the graves, picked up Kepler’s rock and hurled it into the ocean with a shout. He stood there for a while, panting, hands gripping at his face and neck, trying to scream, trying to run, until Kai pulled him into his arms again and he went limp.

“Okay now?”

“Okay,” Daniel said, shivering. The rain was picking up again. “We can go back now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are much appreciated! I want to get better! 
> 
> Come yell with me about podcasts on tumblr @alicewasntdead


	4. Interim II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Minkowski intervenes (ft. confrontation, fluff, and my extensive knowledge of complicated grandmother games)

Daniel didn’t know why he stayed. After the funeral there were a few tense days. Days where the whole house seemed to be tiptoeing around him. Then they settled back into a familiar rhythm, not one that Daniel was used to, not one that he knew, but one that was comforting all the same.

He didn’t know why he found it comforting. He didn’t know why he grinned along with Lovelace (Isabel) when she cracked ridiculous jokes or why he wanted Hera to forgive him. He didn’t know why seeing the coats and shoes stacked up in the mud room made him chest feel numb. Like he could be part of something.

He felt like he was hovering over the rest of them, waiting, watching. Ready to run, but desperately wanting to stay.

Maybe it was Kai making breakfast with Doug one day, laughing about something Hera said. Maybe it was Minkowski making room for him on the couch, or the way cleaning dishes with Lovelace felt almost normal. Maybe it was the way Dominik, who didn’t know him, could talk to him for hours about literally anything (the man had an enormous list of interests, from birds to quantum physics, it was actually startling).

It was like he had fallen hard for the idea of home, of family.

Maybe that’s why he agreed to run an errand with Minkowski. Maybe that’s why.

\---

“So, you didn’t say anything about Kepler.” Minkowski wasn’t looking at him, her eyes were fixed on the road. Daniel almost laughed, he should have seen this coming, a trap. It was some kind of unspoken rule that nobody could talk about the funeral in the house. That nobody could say Kepler’s name. Leave it to Minkowski to find a way to talk about both, no exit, no escape routes.

“No,” Daniel said carefully, “I didn’t.”

“Was it because Kai was there?”

“Is it any your business?” he snapped.

“I don’t know. Maybe it became my business when you asked me to _kill_ him.”

Daniel looked at Minkowski, hands tight around the wheel, looking straight ahead. There were a few seconds of tense waiting. She sighed. “I want to help you, Jacobi, that’s all I’ve ever wanted to do. Help.” They sat in silence. Daniel snorted and rubbed his head.

“I can’t believe I’m about to talk to _you_ about this.”

“Would you rather it be Isabel?” She spoke Lovelace’s name like it was still new, still something to be savored. Like the familiarity was still exciting.

“I guess not.” A moment passed. “Wait, this was her idea wasn’t it?”

Minkowski shifted uncomfortably and nodded.

Daniel muttered something about conspirators.

More silence. Minkowski just drove, looking over at him from time to time. Open. Waiting. He started and then stopped himself, his breath catching.

“He wasn’t…We were…” he let out a frustrated sigh. “Shit, I can’t…

“It’s okay.”

Funny how two words could knock down his walls in a moment. The thought that maybe he could make his way through this. That he wouldn’t have to be the survivor forever. That maybe he could be a boyfriend and a friend and a family. A part of a piece of the whole. That he could be fine, one day, that he could be fine _now_. That he could feel so much hate and love for the woman who killed his sister. The woman he tried to make kill his lover. That he could forgive, or want to forgive. That he could finally forget Warren fucking Kepler.

He couldn’t speak. He couldn’t even cry, he just stared ahead at the road out of the dusk-speckled window-shield. Minkowski looked over at him with a kind of heaviness. The look of a woman carrying the weight of tragedy on her back. Not pity, but exhaustion.

“Only you can help yourself, and you don’t need to be ready right now, to talk or to heal or anything.” She reached out and rubbed his arm. Somehow, he didn’t flinch away. “It’s okay, whatever happened, whether you forgive him or not, it’s all your choice. But I would tell Kai. He trusts you _so much_ , it’s only fair to give him that trust back.”

\---

Kai was playing Mahjong with Dominik, Isabel, and Doug when they got back. Hera was helping Doug cheat. Minkowski set down the groceries on the kitchen counter and started to unpack them. He tried to help but she shooed him into the living room, saying something along the lines of him needing to be a more engaged member of the team. Jacobi had realized somewhere down the line that Minkowski still viewed them all as members of a functioning crew that were under her protection. It wasn’t the worst way to cope, but it got a little much sometimes. Sometimes being now.

He grudgingly slumped down next to Kai on the carpeted floor and scrunched his face at the tiles. There was immediate response from all the other players.

“Hey, that’s not fair,” Hera objected, “Kai’s won all three rounds so far.”

Jacobi didn’t look up, only replied that he had already seen Kai’s tiles so it wouldn’t be fair for him to switch teams.

“Plus,” he said, “Lovelace and Dominik don’t want my to help, and you’re already helping Doug.”

To which Lovelace nodded in affirmation and Hera sputtered about false accusations.

Daniel, unperturbed, rested his chin on Kai’s shoulder. “Can I grab one of the cards, babe?”

Kai, apparently extremely intent on continuing his winning streak, only grunted, but did pass him the card.

“I can’t believe you guys are using the 2012 sets, what is this, the apocalypse?"

Isabel hit him with hers. “Quiet, I’m strategizing.”

\---

One hour, two very intense debates about the benefits and drawbacks of Jewish and Asian Mahjong respectively, and three mutinies (handled by Minkowski) later, the other teams gave up all hope of beating Kai, and retreated to their respective activities. Kai went upstairs, and Daniel joined him, sitting on the edge of the bed, shoulders hunched, stuck.

Kai closed his laptop after it was clear that Daniel wasn’t going to move. He touched his shoulders lightly and sat next to him, gentle, kind. So much more than he deserved.

Daniel would rather be anywhere. He would have rather been floating in the abyss of space than face his fucked-up emotions. But here he was. About to confess. Or something along those lines.

So he just started talking.

“Once upon a time, there was a man, who could make you feel important, or make you feel like you were nothing, and you never knew which man you were getting on any given day. But what was important was that he was charismatic, and he made the work you were doing feel _needed_ or _important_ or _special_. And say this man came to you at a bar, where you’re at rock bottom, trying to drink yourself into oblivion. And say he gives you a job.”

 Daniel took a deep breath and looked at Kai cautiously.

 “This is about Kepler, right.”

Daniel nodded. “It’s…I get it. Whatever _happened_ it was fucked up. Like, I know that, but part of me was his _friend_ , if nothing else. I can’t get rid of that, no matter how hard I try. And God, I’ve tried so fucking hard, Kai. I’ve tried to hate him. I do hate him, but it’s never in the right ways, you know. It just makes me feel selfish and small. Like, he was a goddamn villain! Maybe even legitimately evil, and I just…I can’t.” He was veering dangerously close to being hysterical so he stopped, and looked at the ground.

Kai made a sound he couldn’t quite parse and turned Daniel’s face to look at him. Daniel opened his eyes to see an unfamiliar and very intense look on his boyfriend’s face.

“Daniel, listen to me, I’m never going to judge you for past relationships, especially if they were traumatic. I’ve been there. Maybe not in the exact same ways, but I’ve been there. Please, just be open and honest about your feelings. God, Daniel, I love you, a lot, but sometimes you make it so hard to understand what’s going on in that beautiful brain of yours.”

Daniel sat there for a moment, then kissed his partner's palm. Maybe a thank you, maybe an apology, maybe because he couldn’t talk about it anymore, he wasn’t quite sure. But Kai seemed to except it and move on, willing for that to be the end of it.

\---

Later that night, Daniel whispered, “thank you,” into Kai’s hair, and he hummed back. And maybe this was the beginning of healing, or the middle, or the end, all Daniel knew was that he put himself out there with his baggage attached and been excepted with open arms. And it felt like flying. And maybe that’s why he stayed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I headcanon Jacobi and Dominick as Jewish and Kai is South East Asian so that is where the Mahjong argument stemmed from.

**Author's Note:**

> yell at me about podcasts @alicewasntdead on tumblr


End file.
